“Alright. So they’re going to restart the season?” I asked tentatively. Ciaran’s face looked grim.
“Yes but… there’s more to it than that.” His eyes shifted to his friend. “We should have Elena here for this.” His low voice rumbled, quieter and more serious than usual.
“I’ll send her a message.” Rory tore off a strip of paper from his notes and scrawled a message to Elena. He marked it with messenger runes and it vanished into thin air with a pop. This was the first time I had seen any of them send a message like this. Well, that explained how they all knew what was going on all the time.
We waited a few minutes in tense silence. I looked between Rory and Ciaran, attempting to decipher the wordless conversation that passed between them.
Elena skidded into the room within five minutes, breathless from running.
“I came as fast as I could. What’s going on?”
Ciaran’s hands twisted together in front of him, his mouth a hard line. He looked at me, then Rory, and nodded.
“The viscount has ‘gifted’ the Lutesse City Opera to the Church of Scion.” He spoke low and quiet.
“What?” I should have expected it, after everything the archbishop had said. But somehow, it still came as a shock.
“Yes. The Church effectively owns the opera now. The building, the cast, the company—all of it.”
“Son of a bitch,” Fionn said, blowing out a slow breath.
“Putain de merde…”Elena swore in a low hiss.
“What does that mean?” I remembered the archbishop’s sermon, a pit yawning open in my stomach.
Rory spoke first. “It means that now even the arts belong to the Church of Scion. The opera will be performing Church sanctioned pieces. If they perform anything at all.”
“Oh, they’ll be performing,” Ciaran interjected, twisting his hands together. He glanced at me, black eyes burning into me. “They are holding a masquerade ball to celebrate the reopening and the Church’s acquisition. At the end of the week.”
“Shit,” Fionn said quietly.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Since the end of the war, the Church of Scion had been slowly infiltrating every aspect of life in Lutesse. But the arts had remained free of their influence thus far. They’d tried to ban things—books, certain types of music and dancing, even paintings that were considered “heretical”—but thus far none of that had stuck. I shuddered to think of what would happen if it did now. What Lutesse would become without the lifeblood of the arts running through her.
And then I remembered an even more prescient danger. “What about the… the Pentacle?” I whispered. The possibility of that ancient magical artifact falling into the hands of the Church of Scion was unfathomable. “If it’s in the opera house, do you think… do you think they know about it?”
“If the item on the stage is indeed the lost Pentacle, then it may have been overlooked for so long no one knows what it truly is,” Rory answered softly.
“But if they do know it’s there? Or they find it? Could they wield it? Could they destroy it?” Elena wondered out loud.
“Both. Either,” Ciaran clarified.
“We can’t let this happen,” Elena pleaded. “Ciaran. We have to do something.”
“I agree,” Ciaran replied, his shoulders slumped. I could see the pain and worry in his eyes as they locked with mine.
“So we infiltrate.” I jumped into the conversation, a spark of an idea igniting in my mind. It was stupid and reckless. But I was speaking before I could give it a second thought. “We can use this masquerade to our advantage. We go in through the mirror. Ciaran can hide us in his shadows until we get to the party. We’ll be in masks, so no one will know who we are anyway. You three can set off some kind of distraction—disrupt the party and show them that we are here and we won’t take this lying down. While Ciaran and I go into the theatre and get the Pentacle out.” I shrugged.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Fionn considered
“No. Not you,” Rory interjected. “Seraphina, I’m sorry, you haven’t had enough training to be a part of this. It will be the four of us going if anything.” His words hit me like a slap in the face. “We should consult the council and come up with an official mandate. Ciaran, you know that’s the best course of action. This deserves to be taken seriously.”
“I know that building better than anyone. I can help you! I don’t have to know how to do magic to be useful. I’m the one who told you about the Pentacle in the first place. Please don’t leave me out of this,” I pleaded.
“You are a wanted criminal. You will be a liability.” Rory spoke calmly and firmly.
“Ciaran is a wanted criminal as well. Are you going to tell him not to be involved?” Tears prickled in the corners of my eyes. A man telling me what to do. It never failed to elicit this reaction. I felt small and insignificant.
“Ciaran is an incredibly powerful magic wielder with years of training, who can cloak himself in shadow. You are none of those things,” Rory argued.
